We've been homeschooling for a week and a day now and already I feel I have to change our style and schedule.   Guess this really is a learn as you go adventure for all of us. 

I originally set things up with all "subjects" done everyday, but in very short increments.  After a week and a day of doing it this way, I now see that I need to re-evaluate things.  Doing every subject every day is just not going to work.  It puts too much pressure on getting everything on the list done rather than us enjoying learning.  Also, sometimes we are really enjoying what we are doing and don't want to stop to move on to something else.  So I figure instead of a "lesson plan" for every subject every day, I think we're better off having a plan for what we want to acomplish that week.  Then we can spend the whole day reading and talking about Native Americans if we want to, or playing educational games or reading good literature, without feeling we are behind.

Also, I originally set up a strict starting time and ending time.  I did this because I think the structure of a schedule is good for us, however some days keeping to the schedule does more harm than good.  Like when the baby is awake with bad gas until 4 am (getting up at 6:00 am so that I could be ready to begin school at 9:00 was not fun that day!).  Or when we deperately need to get to the supermarket during "school" hours.  I think having a general schedule is good, but I need to be more flexible to allow for occassional interruptions in the schedule.  I like the idea of the weekly lesson plans for this reason as well.  If we have to start later one day, or take a few hours in the afternoon for errands, we can "make it up" on another day that week.  Structure is good and necessary, but being too rigid and not leaving any room for flexibility will be very damaging I think. 

I guess this is all part of the package when you are just starting out. You can't really tell what will work for your family without actually trying the different approaches out first.  A plan may look very good on paper, but may not be a good fit once put into practice.  And its okay if it doesn't work and its okay to change things around to find the right approach.  The goal is to help our children enjoy learning, so that they may learn all their lives, not have a perfectly planned and executed school year. 

So........this weekend I will be doing a lot of erasing and re-writing in my lesson plan book (good thing I used pencil), which is now a book that no longer works so well with my new method! And on Monday we will try out the new plan and see how it goes.  Maybe this is the right fit for us, or maybe next Friday I'll be telling you about yet another change.  Change does not come easy for me, but as long as I keep my mind on the real goal (children who are enthusiastic about learning) I will welcome it as needed.  I guess I am going to grow a lot as a person during this whole adventure as well!